Russian firm to invest N130b in Nigeria, others this year
From Kelechi Okoronkwo, Abuja
ORIENTAL capital influx into the continent may have attained further upswing profile as Renaissance Capital, a Moscow Russia-based brokerage firm, has made known its plans to increase its investment in Nigeria and other African countries to at least $1 billion (N127.6 billion) this year.
Stephen Jennings, the founder of the Moscow brokerage firm, in a statement recently, said he was shifting his focus to African countries as a result of declining capital gain on Russian blocks.
The company had, last month, helped United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) organises a $300 million shares sale and also stated that it expected to underwrite its first African corporate debt in July.
Also, the company's private equity arm, Renaissance Partners, already has $500 million of assets in Africa, including a 25 per cent stake in Ecobank Transnational Incorporated.
Jennings said he was planning to open a Dubai office to help channel oil money from the Persian Gulf into Africa. Having offices in Lagos-Nigeria and in Nairobi-Kenya already, he stated that he wanted to use those outlets to challenge China, which according to him is the biggest foreign investor, presently, in Africa.
He also stated that Africa's longest expansion in more than three decades was increasing demand for capital from overseas even as International Monetary Fund (IMF), last month, raised its economic growth forecast for Africa to 6.8 this year from 5.7 per cent in 2006, boosted by oil exporting Angola and Nigeria.
His words: "Africa is going through an enormous renaissance and unlike Russia in the 1990's, it's not a matter of imagining that it might happen, it is happening".
"With the exception of the Chinese, we will be one of the largest investors in the region. We have the ability and capacity to make quite big investment and bring in co-investors".
Jennings said the boom in Russian initial public offerings and mergers, growing markets in Kazakhstan and Ukraine and an asset management business that had surged 1000-fold since 2003 to $4 billion was helping him to expand beyond equities trading.
"The profit of Renaissance Capital, which includes the brokerage and investment bank units rose 59 per cent last year to $301 million. The bank's return on equity was 64 per cent".
"Renaissance Capital is part of Renaissance group, which also owns a private equity firm, a consumer lending bank and asset management arm". Jennings stated.
